Given the widely fluctuating and generally decreasing real estate market in current times, many homeowners who are faced with lack of sufficient living space are turning to remodeling their existing homes rather than buying new homes. In their search for adding additional living space, most homeowners are finding out that they can gain much more added space for their money by building up rather than out.
When adding second levels or dormers, however, a common problem that a contractor faces is that existing timbers such as floor joists or roof rafters are undersized, and must be increased in size to increase their load carrying capacity or to accommodate additional insulation.
The most common method of increasing the load carrying capacity of a timber is to double-up the existing timber that is, to nail a timber with the same or larger dimension into and along side the existing timber. This method, however, is plagued by many problems and difficulties which add tremendously to the cost of the job. For example, electrical wires are often run over the floor joists. In such cases, an electrician must be called to re-route the electrical wires, or the new larger timbers must be notched to accommodate the wires in which case the timber strength is greatly reduced.
An additional common problem is caused by insulation which generally fills the bays or spaces between floor joists, roof rafters, or even wall studs. In order to add new timbers of larger dimension in these cases, the insulation must be removed, the timbers installed, and the insulation re-installed. This step is very time consuming and unnecessarily exposes workers to the dangers inherent in handling insulation. Further, adding the new timbers alongside the existing timbers reduces the width between timbers which often affects the type of insulation which must be re-installed.
Similar problems are also faced by homeowners wishing to remodel when it is discovered that one or more of the walls, floors or ceilings do not meet the current building code standards regarding the amount of insulation required in the home. In such cases, although not for structural reasons, the existing timbers must somehow be enlarged to accommodate the additional thickness of insulation to bring the structure in compliance with the current building codes.
Further, both remodeling and new construction often require adding new timbers, and attaching these new timbers to existing timbers. Conventional timbers which are to be added suffer from crown, bridge or other similar dimensional inconsistencies. To avoid this problem, one type of new timber now includes pre-engineered timbers made from laminated or wafered layers of wood or even wood chips glued and pressed together. The installation of such new timbers is also costly due to the time involved in toe-nailing, supporting, or coupling such timbers.